Fic: A Far Distant Future - Volume Two

[vespaer]

CHAPTER SIX: The More Things Change
Characters: Sylar/Claire
Summary: It's amazing what absence will do to the heart...
Rating: "R" for some violence, some blood & guts, and eventually some sexual imagery
Spoilers: Up through season 3 I guess, but this got started before season 4.

A/N: Yay! It only took 18 Chapters, but we've finally gotten to *ahem* The Most Important Chapter of the Story. We finalize the Liontamer arc, we explain what's going on (and basically the whole story), AND we get one of our little lovebirds back from a float trip in Egypt, if you know what I'm sayin'. Wheeeee! Is anyone else excited? I know I sure am!
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes or anything remotely related and I bow humbly before the television gods, please have mercy on me. And if I've massively screwed something up, I'd like to know.

Read Chapter Five | Read Chapter Seven

Claire prayed that her sharp, surprised intake of air wasn’t noticeable. She managed to rip her fet from her purse in the nick of time, just as the Shadow Man entered the lift to go up. With lightning fast reflexes she flipped it open and turned on its holographic projector, allowing the morning news to obscure a clear view of her face as he turned to her.

“Is this your floor?”

No, of course not, she just rode all the way down to the basement for fun, and now she was going to ride back up. Stupid… but then, they never really did think for themselves.

“Mmhm,” she hummed as she stepped out, not trusting her voice and trying to look casual as she fought to keep her knees from collapsing. She leaned against the wall and heaved a heavy sigh of relief after the doors had closed between them and the lift had left her level. She didn’t know why she was so nervous - it wasn’t like any of them were old enough to recognize a nearly three hundred and twenty five year old red-headed Claire Bennett. But her paranoia had kept her free thus far and it was probably a good idea to keep it that way. She straightened her lab coat and fluffed her hair before finishing her trip to the morgue.

“Mornin’!” she called to her co-worker as she placed her purse in the bin where she kept all of her private items.

“Holy crap did you miss all the excitement,” her friend answered as she leaned her head through the doorway leading to the chamber where bodies were kept in cold storage.

“Is there really ‘morning’ in space?” Claire asked, trying to change the subject. She knew the excitement had something to do with a certain black-suited individual she’d rather not discuss. She also had a sickening feeling the topic of her clandestine undead roommate might come up.

“One of the Black Guard was just here looking for your tattooed studmuffin,” she went on, ignoring her. “Where is he? Thought you were gonna bring him back from Jesse?”

Yup, there it was. Good times.

“Oh, he put him on ice. He’s being loaded aboard the Zephyr,” she lied. “They’re taking him to some Intelligence office in the Pisces Sector. They think maybe the rebels are using obsolete technology to pass coded messages or something like that.”

“Wow, good call. That’s cool, then. I just sent him up to see Jesse.”

Shit. She was going to have to fake her own death a little sooner than she’d anticipated. This life was starting to become complicated. And just when she’d started getting her space legs…

“You know, it’s weird,” Tami continued, snapping on a pair of gloves, “I expected to see the Black Guard all over the place with all the colonists showing up here after what happened in Sagittarius,” she tilted her examination wand to indicate the body beside her, “sure… but don’t they usually travel in packs? I mean, at least pairs. Don’t you think it’s weird that a singular individual has this one special purpose? That’s just not how I’ve ever seen them operate.”

Claire didn’t know what to say, although she was pretty sure Tami’d only ever seen them ‘operate’ on television. She’d certainly never been chased by them or hunted by their little machines or had her wedding crashed by entire hoards of them or anything… But it was kind of weird to see just one acting alone …

“To be honest, I don’t really care how they operate as long as they’re doing it someplace where I’m not. Can you toss me some gloves? I’m out.”

“Oh, that reminds me, courier came, dropped these off for you.” Tami handed her a box of gloves. “You don’t have to send out for those, you know - they’ve got tons of them in the supply ward. I could’ve helped you get some.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I kinda had to special order them.” Claire could feel her nose getting longer with the tangled web of lies she was spinning. Fuckin’ Sylar… always coming along and ruining her life. Maybe he wasn’t so different after all. “I have circus-freakish tiny hands - supply ward didn’t have any small enough.” She held up her free hand and wiggled her fingers as proof. “Don’t know how I get anything done with these stumps.” Tami raised her eyebrows and nodded in acknowledgement.

Claire opened the bin where she’d stashed her purse and allowed the door to block Tami’s view. The top of the glove box was still sealed, the perforations still holding the lid intact, however the bottom of the box was a different story. She carefully pulled back on the adhesive where it had been opened to discover an envelope hidden inside. She transferred the secret treasure to her purse before snagging two gloves and closing the bin. Yanking them on and flexing her fingers with the improved fit she turned to the occupied tables filling the room.

“Okay, which of these is the messiest? I’d like to save the clean ones for closer to lunch.”

~*~*~

*** two hundred and sixty seven years ago ***

Acceptance

Gabriel stood at the edge of a field of red flowers, the sunlight glowing golden through his eyelashes. It was a short hike to the grassy knoll in the middle, the usual meeting spot. He slung his canvas messenger bag over his shoulder and started walking, smiling at the feel of the blooms brushing against his pant legs with soft thuds. Disrupting them scattered their pleasant and peculiar scent into a cloud that surrounded him, embracing his senses as he strode forward on confident feet. When he reached his destination he sank to the earth in tranquility, listening to the chatter of insects as a soft, dry breeze lifted his hair in a loving caress. He closed his eyes and leaned back on his elbows while he waited for his companion. After a few quiet moments he was startled to hear a muted tapping, like a finger against fabric. He slid one eyelid open to see a pale young boy dressed completely in black. He had a strong jaw for his age and his dark eyes held an unnatural sort of wisdom. He was nervously drumming his thumb against his thigh, but that was just Sylar. He wouldn’t be who he was if he wasn’t fidgety. He was the one with the super-powers, and was their self-proclaimed protector. If Gabriel carried the same weight on his shoulders, he’d probably have a few weird ticks too. In truth, however, while Sylar was still a bit spooky, he was no longer sullen, tempestuous, or angry, and he had become a bit braver about risking his trust which was a big deal for someone like him.

“Hi!” He couldn’t help smiling at the boy. In a way, he made Gabriel think of a sort of gothic Peter Pan.

“Hello, Gabriel,” he replied, slowly turning to face him and lower his body to the grass. Once settled, he dipped into the front pocket of his black hoodie sweater to produce his bag of toothpicks and his bottle of glue. Gabriel carefully pulled their project from his bag to place it between them.

“Our new Sylar is lookin’ pretty good, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. Think chicks’ll like him?”

“I dunno. I think so. Gonna be a little while before we get to find out, though.”

“Yeah…”

He stifled a chuckle to watch Sylar methodically lay groups of toothpicks - exactly ten each - in orderly piles before him, ready to begin constructing his arm. He was working on the right one while Gabriel was tasked with the left. With incredible difficulty, he resisted calling the boy out on his obsessive/compulsive nature. Instead, he protested by pinching up a random clump without counting and began to artlessly slather glue all over them. Was this one of the differences Maggie saw between them? Not for the first time he could see why she found her profession so fascinating. He stopped what he was doing and looked up when he heard a small yet meaningful sigh, and watched as Sylar placed his hands in his lap to wring them with some unspoken worry. It was always the boy’s first instinct to be an introvert and routinely had to be reminded it was okay to talk. Gabriel put the glue back down.

“Hey - what’s going on? What’s the matter?”

Sylar hung his head for a minute, trying to decide where to start, working up his courage. When he lifted his face again, his eyes were wide.

“What’s gonna happen to me when we’re done with him?” His chin quivered and his eyes took on a glassy, watery appearance. “Am…” He swallowed. “Am I gonna disappear?” His chest was heaving - he was desperately trying not to cry. Gabriel crawled on his hands and knees before swiveling his hips to sit next to the boy. He tenderly gripped his thin shoulder.

“No, dude, you’re not gonna disappear - what do you think we’ve been doing here? You’re telling me you don’t think you’ve changed, not one little bit? You don’t feel different at all?”

“I dunno… kinda…”

“Kinda… are you kidding me? You’re totally different! Sylar, we’ve been building you! ”

“You’ve changed too.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. That for starters.” Sylar pointed to the silver chain snaking around Gabriel’s neck. Gabriel tugged it out from beneath his shirt, revealing the round, shiny mechanism that hung from it. He held it level and watched as its tiny arrow spun circles around its face before stopping, pointing directly at their inanimate little toothpick golem. Sylar may have had special powers, but Gabriel held their compass - the one that would always point them down the right path. It was their agreement - they would take care of each other.

“Yeah, I suppose I have.”

“So what will we do when he’s done?” Sylar asked as he pressed close against him in a rarely expressed need for comfort. Without pulling away, Gabriel dug deep into his pocket.

“I was thinking we’d work on this next.”

Sylar’s eyes lit up with Christmas morning and birthday excitement all wrapped in one when Gabriel withdrew a watch - and old, expensive broken timepiece. He saw his own name etched underneath. He accepted it as Gabriel handed it to him, turning it over in his small but nimble fingers belying a level of experience that was impossible for his apparent age.

“I think we can -” Gabriel started when he heard a voice call from a great distance. “Maggie’s here.”

“Go ahead, I wanna play with this,” Sylar told him, holding it up to his ear and giving it a series of tiny, gentle shakes, listening for the sounds of tiny cogs and wheels that meshed together, worked together.

“Actually, I was thinking we’d go together.”

Sylar stared at him blankly.

“… we can do that…?”

“I, uh… I think that’s the whole point. I think that’s what Maggie’s been trying to get us to do all along.”

“But… how…?”

“Hell if I know, but with your power and my compass, I don’t think there’s really anything we can’t do.”

“But -”

“Here, stand up. Take my hand.”

“What about New Sylar?”

“He’s not going anywhere. We can finish him when we get done. We still have to decide what kind of head we want to put on him anyway.” Gabriel dropped his chin and blinked. Learning to work together was like putting the head on the doll, and what the statue actually represented was the summation of their entire relationship thus far. He understood. It was time to try. As if Sylar had just come to the same conclusion, he stood and clasped his fingers within his own.

Gabriel only closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them his consciousness had resurfaced. He was once again surrounded by cream-colored concrete walls and was facing the same barrier of bars, acting as a backdrop for a very familiar black-and-white clad woman seated in her usual spot in his chair. She smiled her same, rosey-cheeked smile. It was then that he noticed the very strong aroma of chocolate.

“Good afternoon, Ga-” she pressed a finger to her lips in contemplation. “Well, now, I may be getting a bit old and rusty, but I’m not really sure who I’m talking to today!”

“We’ve decided to work together. You can call me whatever you want.”

The sudden silence in the cell spoke volumes. Very slowly, Maggie straightened her spine in her chair and leaned almost imperceptibly nearer to him, digging her clasped hands into her lap. She lifted her face and her lips parted slightly in wonderment. Her eyes held him transfixed, spearing him with something warm and trembling and he could feel it begin to swell inside him. It felt like pride. She leaned into him even further and beamed brightly.

“As I’m obviously somewhat partial to angels and the like, I think I’ll stick with Gabriel if it’s all the same.”

He nodded his assent and smiled.

Maggie couldn’t help but stare at him a little longer. The event was as bitter as it was sweet. It meant that their time was at an end. She was as triumphant as she was heartbroken. While there was no greater joy in watching a long and arduous (and sometimes volatile) healing process come to its full fruition, Maggie had a terrible time saying goodbye. Her patients were often under her care because they had no one else in their lives - had no one to shape them, give them a proper foundation for life, give them proper care and a proper upbringing, give them patience, love, and security. The usual mixture of solitude, neglect, abuse, emotional trauma, and mental instability was a very successful cocktail for breeding the monstrous. Too many times Maggie had been told she’d been the only friend a patient ever had, or that such a friendship was perceived as impossible or undeserved after the crimes the patient had committed. So much was invested in learning to trust, learning to let go of anger and hurt, learning to love, and learning to heal that the act of building any sort of relationship with these people was immeasurably monumental. And it was everything to them - it altered their lives, saved them. They gave her life meaning and purpose. To bring his case to a close and draw his treatment to an end would dig a huge, gaping chunk out of her heart, the same way it did every time. She was amazed she still had a heart left to give.

“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” she told him after clearing the knot out of her throat, deciding not to continue her train of thought. I thought we might enjoy a bit of hot chocolate this afternoon, and I brought you this.” She presented a bar of chocolate sporting a big red bow. “It’s one of the only things Bob’d let me give you, and he still wouldn’t let me wrap it because, even though it’s shape was a dead giveaway, it could’ve been ‘anything under that paper, ma’am’.” She smiled a nearly teary smile before tossing him the candy and grabbing her thermos from its resting spot near her feet. “You must promise not to open it until Christmas morning young man!” Gabriel hadn’t had chocolate since he’d had her chocolate chip cookies, he wasn’t sure he was gonna keep that promise… but he’d try. He accepted a steaming mug and stood slowly, trying not to spill it as he made his way to his cot. He blew across the surface of the liquid.

“What are we working on today?”

“Something new,” she told him, and there was an odd tone in her voice that pricked him with a tiny poke of anxiety. He cocked an eyebrow at her as he took a tentative sip. “As it would appear that we’re beginning to successfully integrate the two of you, I’d like to move on to the stage of your treatment that I’ve termed ‘Acceptance’.”

“What does that mean?”

“Rather than tell you, I’m going to show you. Drink your chocolate.”

~*~*~

Maggie’s voice sang like a tiny silver bell just behind his right ear. She’d asked him to stay where he was and he’d obeyed - his surroundings hadn’t changed except that he’d become inexplicably alone. He rose from the cot to stand in the middle of the cell and spared a curious glance down at himself. He was surprised by what he saw: his appearance had changed unexpectedly - there was a grey line drawn down the middle of his body. On his right side he was dressed completely in black and his hand sparked with electric blue strength. On his left he was dressed completely in white and held a silver compass. He looked up at the sound of a voice.

“Is there something you want?”

The slim brunette girl on the other side of the bars was familiar. She stepped a bit closer and her name sprang from his tongue the instant he caught sight of her expressive green eyes.

“Olivia.” The shifty little ghost girl with the perilously coveted ability. She was the walking definition of freedom - elusive and unencumbered by the need for flesh, she was wholly incapable of being restrained by any physical means. The girl could laugh at all attempts to hold her while she blew away on the very wind that passed from her lips, and the last that could be seen of her would be her fingers still wiggling goodbye. She mocked the universe.

Sylar hated being mocked - hated accusing eyes beating him down and berating him.

“I know there is,” she said, “I know I have something you want.”

Freedom. But he could leave whenever he wanted to… couldn’t he? Would he?

It had been nearly thirty years since he’d seen the girl, or had seen anyone like her for that matter, someone with a new ability. There was a taste running across his tongue and trickling down his throat, familiar and delicious - a craving as enticing as the chocolate still sitting on his cot smiling up at him with its big red bow. He was stupid to think he’d ever be tamed. His dilating pupils were riveted to her as she dissipated and floated through the bars, teasing them for their inability to hinder her. She re-solidified her body inside the cell, mid-step on her way to confront him. With infuriating daring, she met him face to face and took his right hand in her own, placing it against her temple.

“Take it, if you can.”

A white hot spark of indignance inflamed his temper, tunneling his vision and narrowing his purpose. Just because she’d escaped him once didn’t mean she was always going to beat him - it just meant he’d have to be a bit quicker and a lot more thorough. Her pulse danced next to the sensitive pads of his fingertips, quick as a jackrabbit tensed to run from the clever, unrelenting fox. She was sure to give him one hell of a chase - oh, how he loved this game. He would beat her, he would win, and before she succumbed to him she would have to recognize him as victoriously superior to her. Everything that made her special would belong to him and she would have to see that he was better than her - that she was never going to mock him, never going to beat him. No one was ever going to.

He brought up his left hand, and used them both to freeze her in place, using his telekinesis to feel through her body - every particle of every atom - to immobilize every tiny molecule. She wouldn’t slip through his fingers this time. She began to struggle as she could no longer inhale or exhale and she began to panic. The heady cocktail of her fear and his success was intoxicating. Somewhere behind the thunder of his own pulse and the rumble of his harsh laughter he heard a small crash… something had hit the floor and rolled. A voice told him it was important, it distracted him.

He turned from her and scoured the floor with his eyes, roving the tile for the source of the sound. Something glittered under the cot, but the big red bow lying on top of the cot caught his attention first. He knelt before it and marveled over how it seemed to change shape the longer he stared at it - slowly it became a red flower. He recoiled from it slightly, paralyzed by an alarming sense of remorse, yanked unceremoniously from a displaced past to be thrust into the present. A choking gasp returned his focus to the girl, still suspended in the air. A red flower had appeared over her left ear, its long silky petals curving against her skin to the point where they almost crossed into her wide open eye.

His right hand bumped something underneath the cot. He brought it up to investigate, and discovered it was a small, wildly spinning compass. It stopped abruptly and pointed away from him toward the back wall of the cell. He followed its trajectory and fell backwards onto his butt as a figure began to materialize before him. She sat on her knees with her hands on the floor, cupped around a slowly growing blossom, and her raven hair fell forward to obscure her face.

“You’re not like him, my angel,” she told him.

Every death he’d ever fashioned exploded before his eyes. The room was suddenly filled with a twisting macabre slideshow of bleeding brains and open skulls. Their milky dead eyes bore into him with malice and the flavor in his mouth that was once so pleasant became… something tainted. His mother reached out a hand to him. He leaned to take it, but before their fingers touched sparks arced between them, their blue light casting frolicking shadows across the walls.

“I know he gave you his curse,” she whispered, “but I gave you a gift.” She held the sparks between them, beckoning to him to understand their meaning. “You know what it is, my love.”

The sparks mesmerized him. He studied them until… Elle. He… he had spent time with her… had opened himself to her… he had taken a leap of faith and had loved her… he had understood her. What had Claire said to him? ‘You can understand anything.’ He remembered feeling Claire’s bitterness toward her circumstances seep into him before he cut her down… he remembered feeling the palpable fear and maternal desperation to protect a child slither up his spine in a campground once in Oklahoma. He had inherited his father’s intuitive aptitude and the feral hunger that accompanied it, but his mother had coupled it with what she’d hoped would’ve been a compassionate empathy.

He was an empath, just as she had been, and had been capable of mimicking Elle’s ability by simply understanding her and how she used it.

His mother pulled her hand away and the sparks died, leaving him bereft of her warmth but only momentarily as she reached for his other hand, bringing them together. He still held the compass.

“You know what path to take my angel, and it will always be difficult to travel. You will go hungry many times. When you do, fill yourself with my love for I am always with you.” She stood and backed away from him severing the bond that soothed him. She meant for him to take care of himself. It was time for her to leave. “It is time to let go of anger and it is time to let go of fear. Talk to the girl. She may become your friend. She may change your life.” As calmly and as silently as she came, she disappeared.

He had made himself alone. He had made himself despised. He had made himself his father. He had dug himself a very deep hole and then he’d willingly thrown himself inside. It was time to climb out. He let the girl go.

She collapsed to her side, hysterically sucking massive gulps of air into her wheezing lungs. Instinctually she jerked away from him as he approached her, on his knees.

“Please, I’m sorry,” he begged, “I’m so sorry, please don’t run… I’m trying. This is really hard for me and I’m trying, okay? Please don’t cry. Don’t run, don’t go. Please? Please, I’m sorry… I… I just want to talk to you, is that okay? Can we do that? Can we just talk? I’m sorry… sorry for everything -”

Olivia began to shift - it seemed as if she were trying to disappear.

“No!” he called to her. “Please! I meant what I said!”

But she didn’t disappear, she just changed. Her mist swirled and coalesced to become Claire, just as he’d last seen her. She placed one warm hand on his shoulder and smiled a light, like a beacon. A moment passed between his eyes and hers, deeply green pools of comprehension, feathery soft with tranquility. She gave his shoulder a light squeeze and he blinked. His consciousness resurfaced and she was gone.

He rose slowly from where he was lying on his cot, combating a sudden wave of light-headedness. He rubbed his eyes as he swung his legs around the side.

“Maggie, I guess I don’t get why -”

The familiar sound of a slide mechanism being pulled back on a semi-automatic hand gun interrupted him. He opened his eyes with trepidation, terrified of what he might see.

Maggie was crumpled against the far wall of the cell, resting on her side, clutching her hand to her heaving bosom. He moved to make his way to her when Bob yelled.

“DON’T!!!” The years hadn’t deterred his sense of duty, nor, he suspected, did they deaden his aim. The weapon was held expertly rigid and his eyes were wide with anticipation. He would fire, regardless of the futility. And he wouldn’t stop. “Stay where you are!”

“Oh, Bob…” Maggie groaned weakly. Gabriel remained where he sat, unwilling to aggravate an already tense situation, horrified enough that he wasn’t certain what to do anyway. “Would you knock it off? You’re being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous, ma’am? You’ve obviously hit your head.”

“I gotta agree with him…” Gabriel nodded.

“You SHUT YOUR MOUTH, you piece of -”

“Officer Robert Harriman!” Maggie bellowed louder than Gabriel’d ever heard her. “As a Matron of this cloth I have asked you for the last time - put that gun down! I will tolerate no more violence!”

Bob snapped the gun to his side, chest pounding and jaw grinding silent curses. He eased the slide back into place, disarming the live round that had entered the chamber. He replaced it into his holster as he stomped away, muttering something about ‘your funeral’.

“Maggie…” Gabriel began.

“Be a dear, will you? Help me up?” Maggie reached for him. With two easy strides he crossed the cell and clasped a hand gently around her wrist, righting her to her feet.

“There, now see?” she said as she straightened her skirts. “No harm done.” So why couldn’t he help but feel something inside him had shattered?

“What did I do to-”

“Don’t,” she cut him off. “I know you. You’ll dwell on it instead of focusing on the lesson you’d learned. That’s not what I want for you. Now, sit. I’d like another cup of hot chocolate, how about you?”

He didn’t honestly have the stomach for it, but he couldn’t tell her no. The warm mug felt like a peace offering. He sipped in silence a moment before vocalizing his thoughts.

“Maggie, understand the lesson I’ve learned, but I don’t understand what you were trying to show me about acceptance.”

“Ahh,” she said after swallowing and licking away a chocolate moustache. “Yes, that. My dear, I want you to accept that there will always be a dark part of you. And I want you to accept that, when faced with that darkness again, you will able to set yourself on the correct path. I want you to accept that you can do it.”

He turned his gaze down to the tidal ripples moving back and forth inside his cup.

“For many,” she continued, “this is the most difficult part of their journey. Some never accomplish this goal, foolishly believing that lingering doubts beget honesty. Personally, I believe lingering doubts are an open gateway for lingering failure. It is a far more beneficial thing to accept that you are healed and are ready to move on with your life. I will not always be here for you, Gabriel, and you will not always be a prisoner in this cell. You are going to get your life back someday, and you will be its master. If I did not believe you could do this, I would never have allowed you to… I would never have placed myself in the situation I created today. I urge you to place the same faith in yourself.”

They both drained their cups and Maggie placed them in her bag with her thermos. She stopped before she left and slid a hand around the side of his face, wishing him a Merry Christmas. Later that evening Gabriel and Sylar sat in the grass and cracked open the watch while New Sylar, now complete, stood to the side as stiff and as proud as a trophy.

~*~*~

*** now ***

When his treatment had ended, Maggie had eased the sting of her departure by writing frequent letters, sending gifts, and visiting over holidays. He had been fine with that and it kept him going. He was not, however, prepared for her eventual death several years later. He had finally understood where Claire had been, facing the loss of her husband and unborn child. He was bitter over the cruelty of his longetivity and angry at himself for taking it, believing it was probably the biggest mistake he’d ever made out of the many he could claim. But if he hadn’t taken her ability he would never have had the time to start his life over - to pay his toll in a jail cell for three hundred years and fix the things that were broken within him. He would also never have fallen hapless prey to Mother Nature and her fickle ways… he had just begun to heal from one death, he certainly wasn’t ready to face another. He didn’t move from his cot for what felt like months (although, in reality, it may have been more like weeks), apathetically accepting the futility of interacting with human kind, every face marked with the potential to rip another jagged scar across his heart.

But then, there was that word again - acceptance. It had been her greatest gift to him, and her greatest wish. How could he deny her that, all that she’d lived for? Ultimately, he had learned to accept her parting, and had learned to accept what he was. He had also learned that Claire had been wrong - love did stay. It stayed in him. And her, unless she’d forgotten the love she’d held for her husband and the babies they’d lost… somehow he didn’t think she ever would.

He took deep breaths, lying back on the grass with his knees bent and being gently brushed by swaying blossoms. He listened to Sylar’s small yet commanding voice, reminding him of these things that he already knew. He needed the repetition because he was going to have to say goodbye again today.

Sylar stopped mid-sentence and cocked his head to the side.

“I think someone’s staring at us…”

He stood and held out his hand, helping Gabriel to his feet. The field disappeared.

~*~*~

Claire excused herself from the commons with a stack of sandwiches claiming she couldn’t stay. She was stocking up for a weekend of homework - she was studying to become a nurse. She didn’t suppose another lie would make any difference, not when she knew she was going to have to call Duncan the next day to come pick her up after she ‘accidentally’ got sucked out of an airlock. Maybe in her next life she could actually use the degree she already held… if she could remember anything it had taught her. She still possessed wonderful organizational and time management skills, those never stopped being useful, right? And she was fabulous at managing money. She was a shoe-in for colony life, where the economy was still somewhat fledgling. Well, some colonies, the really far ones - the closer ones were more established and were considered affluent like richer suburbs to choked and starving cities. She smiled at the parallel, Earth having suburbs.

Her heart sank a little with disappointment when she passed through the doorway into her living area and she wasn’t smashed up against the wall or the ceiling or some combination thereof, scattering her sandwiches every which way and up. They were stacked so precariously she thought it was karmically unjust that they didn’t end up on the floor. Nope, contrary to their history thus far, instead of being met with searing blue jolts and manic eyes fevered with sick malignance she was greeted with calm, quiet breathing. She could’ve heard a pin drop. She shook her head and deposited the sandwiches into the mini-fridge.

She stood studying him for a moment. He sat on the floor with his back against the sofa, his hands folded and resting in his lap. His breath rate could almost be described as meditative - he was in another world. After having listened to him talk the night before, she grew suddenly quite aware of what he was doing. He was talking with his ‘other’. She hadn’t been sure she’d ever get to witness the behavior, and it was fascinating. Before she could stop herself from doing something so dumb, she’d already knelt before him and was waving her hand in front of his face. ‘He’s not blind, stupid…’ Sadly, their time together was limited and she had something to give him before she shipped him off to his destination - she had to get his attention, which meant breaking his spell.

“…Sylar?” she attempted, meekly. He didn’t stir. It had been a long time since she’d used his other name - his real name - and the last time he’d heard it from her it was flung at him like a dagger. This time it was decidedly more honeyed.

“Gabriel?”

His thick eyelashes parted to gift her his awareness. The air between them hung heavily laden with the significant passage of time. While it was true he’d been out of prison for a few weeks, his clean slate technically already having been underway, opening his eyes to be met by hers felt more than just a little like waking up to the first day of his life. As green as the stormy Atlantic, they stripped him down to his barest metal parts, learning him as he’d learned so many others before her, watching him tick. Every figment of desolation dissolved under that gaze - he may have to leave her, but she’d always be ‘out there’, somewhere, knowing him. She was precious, a beacon.

“…a light in the darkness…” he whispered, sending her head into a demurely quizzical tilt, causing an errant lock of oddly-colored hair to drift over one soft cheek. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

‘Oh god. Oh my fucking god it’s true. Holy shit, no… Please god no, it is. It’s fucking true.’

He did. He loved her.

“Hmm?” she asked.

Coughing down a sudden flare of discomfort, he replied, “…nothing.” He reluctantly tore his eyes from her and gave them a good rubbing.

“I, uh… I have something for you,” she interjected quickly, remembering the envelope she’d stashed in her purse. She rose to slide her lab coat into a small closet before ducking her fingers into the bag, drawing forth the object in question. “I have, in my hot little hand, a whole new you.” The irony was not lost on either of them. They both left that unspoken. With great flourish, she plopped back down on the floor and held the envelope at arms’ length out before her. “This is bigger than Christmas, are you excited?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Umm… yeah… can’t wait to run off to my new life as a stall mucker on some sheep-herding colony out in the farthest reaches of space…”

“Please, Duncan only does that to people who cause trouble.”

Gabriel made a grand gesture of cocking his head to the side and glaring at her meaningfully.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Claire responded to his expression. “Duncan’s too young. He’s never heard of Sylar, and I’m not going to tell him. So, what’ve we got here… you ready?”

“I was born ready.”

“Yeah, you were born something, alright… lessee here…” She made quick work of tearing open the envelope to withdraw an I.D. card and some paperwork that included things like a birth certificate and other registry files.

“Your name is-”

“Jim! Can I be Jim? I wanna be Jim!”

“Tom. Tom…”

“Aww fuck, I hate Tom…”

“Tom… damn, I hate it when Duncan does this to the new guys… I’m not sure I can pronounce this…”

“Lemme see.” She placed the card in his waiting hand before moving on to the other papers.

“I think it’s… wow. All consonants.” It was spelled ‘Krtek’. “You sure this is right?”

“I know his sense of humor. It’s correct.”

“Hmph.”

“It’s your own damn name, you know - you can pronounce it however you want.”

“Great. Then it’s pronounced fucking ‘Smith’.”

Ahhh, there he was, the whiny bitch she knew so well. The ice was beginning to melt.

“Oh wow…” she’d whispered as she’d read on. “You’ve been conscripted into Intelligence.” She turned her face to him, eyes a little wider than perhaps she’d liked. “You’re an agent.” Which was funny, because that’s exactly where she’d lied about sending his body. He was going to show up at an Intelligence office alright, but he was supposed to show up dead, not alive. This day just kept getting better. A hint of recognition flitted across his features.

“The man who got me out of the camp I was in,” he said, “he told me I wasn’t a ‘mod’, said I was ‘natural born’. Said we were rare, and we were typically urged by the rebels to go into Intelligence to become double agents because we were capable of living ‘normal lives’. Claire, I don’t know what any of this means…”

That’s exactly what Duncan was trying to do. But Claire had called him a mod - how did he know he wasn’t? She supposed it wasn’t hard to track that he was aboard the exploded shuttle craft - he’d probably talked to the same guy who got him out of the camp and put him on the damned thing. Duncan knew people everywhere.

“I’ve been underground, Claire, for a long time… what’s going on?”

She would have to start from the beginning.

“Can I call you Gabe?”

“Wha-? Uh… yeah? I thought I was Tom?”

“I’ve always liked Gabe…”

“What’s that got to do with any-”

“The bad guys won. Crazy evil scientist lady? Yeah. She figured out how your ability worked. After that people started disappearing. Except me, of course. Thanks to you, I was dead.

I went to work as an administrative assistant in some high rise in New York. Moved apartments but didn’t have to leave the city, I mean, no one was gonna find me there. Millions of people everywhere, like trying to find a grain of sand. Anyway, the man I worked for, his boss was one of those lavish, important people that would almost seem fictitious if you didn’t actually see him in the office once or twice a year. His name was Mr. March.

So, my boss asked me to accompany Mr. March to this benefit gala thing because, for whatever convenient reason, Mrs. March wasn’t going to be able to attend. I even got an allowance to get myself a dress and some shoes. I shouldn’t have gone - should’ve known I was nothing more than a well-paid hooker - but I’d never been to a ‘gala’ before and he was picking me up in a limo and everything so… I said yes.

Late the next day I went upstairs to pick up my voucher from Mr. March’s personal secretary to take myself shopping, but when I got there I found out she’d been out sick, which was probably why I was going to the gala and not her. So, anyway, the vouchers were on his desk and I was basically gonna have to sign myself off on one - into his office I went. No big deal right? Right.

Well, there was a large envelope that had been placed right smack in the middle of his desk.” She leaned forward conspiratorially, she was getting to the important bits. “It didn’t have a return address, just a logo. A logo I’d seen before, in some of Craig’s old things. It was the logo for the company he used to work for, which had, as we all know, turned out to be a cover for the nefarious Dr. Judy Rogers and all of her shadow people.” She nodded until he nodded with her. “I had to open that envelope, Gabe. I mean, what if I was gonna end up going to some function that just crawling with all of those black suited fuckers? I had to know, right? There was a lot more at stake there than just my job.

So, I opened it. It contained a letter that talked all about these advancements that had been made in learning to actually manipulate the human genome, and it invited him to an exclusive demonstration - something that only weird rich people got. There were plane tickets in there and everything - all expenses paid, the whole thing was all set up. It was an offer that no one would be crazy enough to refuse. Gabe - the plane was bound for Arizona.

I kept quiet about the whole thing, but caught snippets of conversation between Mr. March and a colleague while we were at the gala - someone else who had gotten an envelope. This guy was a shareholder, and owned large portions of a huge pharmaceutical conglomerate. He had inside information, said that this lab in Yuma had found a way to re-wire the human genome to grant someone special abilities. But not random, not like what Mohinder had done. They could make it so someone could custom make themselves - could be given certain abilities, whatever they wanted. If it was your lifelong dream to be able to fly, you could fly. You want x-ray vision? Sure, you got it. It was going to come in the form of exorbitantly expensive injections. One miracle shot and whammo! You could be the super genius you always wanted to be, or whatever.

Well, Mr. March ended up going and literally that was the last time I ever saw him. I don’t know why, and I’m not going to even speculate. For all I know, he became a mole-man and spent the rest of his life underground. Whatever.

So, anyway, rich people are kinda crazy, you know? Especially the kids of rich people. It wasn’t long before spoiled, neurotic teenagers were getting special abilities. You remember Ted? With hands like nuclear reactors? And that one guy who made that black hole in the middle of New York that one time?” How could he forget, he’d saved her from that one. “Yeah, one of those was bad enough - bad enough that there was an entire secret company devoted to hunting him down. Can you imagine how much damage could happen if even as few as ten super-powered little paparazzi-brats were running around, treating the world like their own private first-person shooter?

But it got worse. One of those little super-freaks figured out the formula - I mean it was really only a matter of time, right? He sold it to the highest bidder. It started showing up on the streets at prices that far undercut what little miss Dr. Rogers had in mind. Suddenly ten super-powered psychopaths turned into hundreds which became thousands.

But it’s even worse than that. Dr. Rogers wasn’t seeing any of the profit from the expanding street sales, so she started circulating rumors that the original formula was eventually wearing off and when it did… it killed. The only way to survive was to spend the rest of your life receiving regular injections of a new formula ever few years or so, and you could only get it at her own sponsored clinics. The street sale stopped almost immediately. She was raking in the dough from insurance companies. She came up with this ‘new formula’ around the time you got transferred away from the facility in Terre Haute.”

“She broke in and stole a vial of my blood.”

“Yes, and the rest I’ve found out from Duncan and his rebels. There was nothing wrong with the original formula - it was the new formula that was tainted, with something that acted like the Shanti virus which was deadly for regular people, but for those with abilities all it really did was nullify our powers.”

He remembered its effects clearly. “That’s what she took from me…”

“Mmhm. The people who had been given the new formula did eventually see their abilities wear off, and when they did they literally became regular, baseline people infected with a deadly virus. The formula acted like a vaccination at that point - the only way to survive was to receive another injection to get that ability back, nullifying the effects of virus temporarily. So then, what Dr. Rogers had created was a terrible, vicious cycle that was going to make her a ton of money.

Until the FDA banned the further sale of the formula to anyone not previously infected and currently receiving injections. People called them ‘modulars’, or someone who had modified themselves in some way. Nowadays you just hear ‘em called ‘mods’. Anyway, just when Dr. Rogers was starting to think she might need a new plan… mods started having babies, who were also born with abilities and who also carried a virus that needed to be fixed with regular injections.

So. Now what you have is a growing population of sick, angry people with super powers, coupled with an ever growing need for greater technology. Pardon the example, but what would you think would happen to a world with a million Sylars running around on it?”

He favored her with a silent, sober gaze but didn’t appear to be insulted. She continued.

“Anyway, to make a three-hundred-year-long story short, our planet is a war zone. Baseline humans have been leaving in droves for the colonies, at least the ones who can afford it, and the Earth below is a ‘safe haven’ of mod camps which are supposed to be run by these humanitarian organizations who take care of the poor, unfortunate blighted mods. They can’t help what they are, right? So they house them and give them injections on social security, providing them what they consider to be a good quality of life. But let’s face it - they’re prison camps. Those people have no freedom and no livelihood. And discontent breeds rebellion.

Some people think the rebellion started with the mob - that’s where I used to get all my new identities, did you know that? You were in prison - how many people did you see were in there for moving people across state lines?”

“I was in the loony bin downstairs, I didn’t really -”

“Lots of mods put out favors for the mob to get out of the camps, there’s big business in mod trafficking, and the procurement of injections kept them very, very loyal. Once enough of them got out, they started organizing. Nowadays, they infiltrate supply ships to procure aid for mod camps. They sabotage force domes over camps, trying to weaken them, making it easier to escape. Sometimes they sabotage bio-domes on the colonies as an act of vengeance - not all rebels condone this action, but it happens nonetheless. I think some rebels dream of having a colony of their own, but that’s not a far stretch, right? Some free little piece of the wild west out on the next frontier? Where the laws of baseline humans doesn’t apply?

Anyway, people like us are still being born. People who are naturally born with abilities. It’s true, we’re rare, we’re typically born outside of mod camps, and we can live without injections. I think you can guess the rest.

And that is where you are.”

“Tom Krrr-tehk, baseline human Intelligence agent -”

“Intelligence agencies work hand in hand with the Black Guard, Gabe. That’s the sticky part.”

“Shadow people.”

“Mmhm. They’re all modified, hive-minded clones. They don’t get injections, they get replaced. They’re incredibly tough to beat, but hopefully you won’t have to because none of them will remember you.”

“Claire,” he began, an old, devilish smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, jabbing a nostalgic hook into her heart, “I promise I’m tougher to beat than they are. I’m happy to replace a few while I'm at it. Where am I headed?”

“Out on the Zephyr, to the Pisces sector. You’re, uh…” she passed a hand through her hair and stood, opening the fridge. He got the impression that she was trying to hide her face from him. “You’re scheduled to leave in an hour.”

She felt his breath tickle the back of her neck. Silently he’d come to stand behind her.

“Hungry?” she stammered nervously. “Brought sandwiches, and a few for the road. It’s a long flight.” She turned and pressed herself uneasily against the counter, startled by his sudden proximity, or more accurately the way it made her feel… disarmed and vulnerable. She had to admit, though, it was almost a relief to discover he could still be a tad creepy. “Got tuna, roast beef, peanut butter and banana -”

“Ooo, seriously?” Something was lost as he transformed, becoming boyishly delighted. “I love peanut butter banana!” And after three hundred years, she’d still managed to learn something new about him. He was animatedly leaning to peer over her shoulder. She stepped away, providing him access to peruse the stash to his content, taking a seat on the sofa.

“That gives us an hour to think up a plan.”

“Plamm?” he mushed around sticky peanut butter, already diving in.

“Yeah… to get you on that ship without getting caught. Plus… there’s one last thing.”

“Ob courth ‘ere ith.”

“There’s a shadow man here on the station. He is very specifically looking for you.”

Naturally. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

A/N #2: Awwwww he loves her! Isn't that sweet?!?! But what happens next?!?!?! Oddly enough, this isn't where I wanted to end the chapter but it was running a bit long so the next chapter might be a bit short - that also means it should be updated a bit quicker, it's bittersweet.